three levels – website structure

A simple and static website structure.

The Story Kettle website exists to publish my stories. It contains hundreds of stories, which are text-based and static. I have chosen a simple and static website structure – the three levels are described below. See also:

Generally there are two types of pages (95% are content and 5% index) and these are grouped into collections such as
Treacle and
OTTer.

content pages contain stories and very few links. One story per content page.

index pages contain many links and little or no content. An index page links to content pages and/or other index pages.

a collection contain stories in content pages and index pages linking to those content pages.
A simple collection, eg.
Shorts,
has content pages and one index page in one directory; although
Frau Alpert
is all over the place.
A big collection, eg.
offcuts,
has (more) content pages in several directories and several index pages.

level 1(the top layer) contains one index page,
the very important home page, see
on the page.
It links to all other index pages. It links to some content pages, such as the newest,
“story of the moment”, the first story in a multi-part, extracts etc.
The top layer is in the top directory (folder).

level 2(the middle layer) contains all the other index pages. Every directory (folder) has at least one index page.

level 3(the bottom layer) contains all the content pages.

standard links on every page are to the home page
(which has no link to itself), to the top of the current page, to
contact,
to the
site map
index page, and to the corresponding index page (for content pages).
No page links to itself, except for on-page links such as top and bottom.

The breadcrumbs at the top of each content page demonstrate the three levels
and aid navigation. The breadcrumbs for this page:
StoryKettle » Notes » three levels

growth – New content pages are added weekly/daily, new index pages and new collections and new directories are less frequent. The home page should be updated every day. Index pages are extended to link to new content pages and all pages are corrected occasionally. No pages are ever removed; though content may be removed for legal reasons.

non-existent – There are no data bases, no frames, no dynamically constructed pages, no (java/PHP) scripts, no local on-site search facility, no cookies;
but see Privacy Policy.

navigation for you, the user – I hope that such a simple three level structure simplifies finding pages. No page is more than three clicks away. One click to the home page (or the
site map),
one to an index page, and one to the content page containing the story.
I personally think that an on-site search facility for a story site is silly.

navigation for search engines – I hope that such a simple three level structure simplifies finding pages.